In broadcast networks, content is made available to multiple users, typically in synchronous fashion, without being specifically addressed to individual user equipment devices in point-to-point fashion. Examples of broadcast networks include cable and satellite television networks, satellite radio networks, IP networks used for multicasting content and networks used for podcasts or telephony broadcasts/multicasts. Content may also be broadcast over the airwaves. The content may be consumed by users in real-time or on a time-shifted basis (e.g., recorded for later playback). Broadcast network content may be re-distributed in a direct address network, e.g., an IP network or data enabled telephony network.
Broadcast network content often includes programming content and informational content. For example, in the case of a television network, the programming content may include news programs, serial television programs, movies, paid programming or other content. The informational content may include advertisements, public service announcements, ad tags, trailers, crawls, weather or emergency notifications and a variety of other content, including both paid and unpaid content. Items of programming content and/or informational content constitute assets of asset providers such as advertisers or programming content providers.
In order to achieve a better return on their investment, asset providers often desire to target their assets to a selected audience. The case of advertisers on a cable television network is illustrative. For instance, an advertiser or a cable television network may desire to target its ads to certain demographic groups based on, for example, gender, age, income, geographic location, etc. Accordingly, under the conventional advertising model, once an advertiser has created an ad that is targeted to a desired group of viewers (e.g., targeted group) the advertiser may attempt to procure insertion times in the network programming when the targeted group is expected to be among the audience of the network programming.
Targeting based on geographic location is of particular interest for certain advertisers. Continuing with the example of ads on a television network, an advertiser may desire to target ads or customize ads based on geographic zones or the like. For example, an advertiser may wish to limit ad distribution to locations proximate to a business outlet or to customize ads with contact information that varies depending on location, e.g., contact information for the local automobile dealership. In such cases, it would be advantageous to target or customize ads based on the location of asset delivery.
Unfortunately, location targeting of ads in broadcast networks has generally been available only on a coarse basis. In the case of airwave television broadcast networks, for example, national and local ad spots may be designated. In this manner, certain ads can be “targeted” with respect to large broadcast areas, such as on a city-by-city basis. In cable networks, somewhat finer targeting is possible. For example, cable network are generally divided into a number of subdivisions associated with network nodes. In some cases, different ads can be inserted at different nodes, allowing for finer location based targeting than is generally possible in airwave broadcast networks.